Enter the Gallows

The nights have grown long and cold and as the leaves fall from trees in a flurry of multicolored splendor marking the end of fall, the moon casts the city streets into a pattern of gray and black hues. Making the city feel peaceful and quiet, until a scream pierces the night, the screams of a young frighten woman, who had the misfortune of finding herself racing home to a sick mother, but had the misfortune of finding herself alone on the streets at this late hour.

Two men of ill intent corner had sandwiched her in the middle of the alley, forcing her up against the cold stone wall of the alley, she wants to scream again as the two men press around her, but the sound becomes lost on her lips.

William Grady, a man in his mid-thirties, pulls glimmering blade from his coat and presses to her neck as she backs further against the wall. Allison Rechairt then finds herself wondering if death would be worse than whatever these men intended to do, but the image of her sickly mother harden’s her resolve, she’ll survive this, she had too. Will’s lips curl into an evil sneer as he presses his face against her, taking in her sent, with his hot, sour breath forcing her to recoil further against the wall and attempt to pull away, but he manages to hold her firmly in place. “Now hear me lass, my boy and me offered to take you home, there be no need to be acting so cheeky now,” He whispers, with his unruly and unkempt beard ticking her face, causing her to skin to crawl. “Please, I…I’m just trying to get home,” Allison begs, trying to recoil further away from the man, his breath was rancid, reeking of whiskey and rot. “Oh, not worry, Alfie and I would love to help you home, but after a little Rumpy-Pumpy that is.” He says twirling a strand of her black hair between his fingers.

Alfie Long-Fellow, was a few years younger, cleaner shaven, with greasy hair pulled back, with a rat like face, steps closer to the woman grinning, “I don’t know William, she looks a bit shy she does.” Allison sobs, fearing their intentions, and worst what they would do if they found the medicine hidden on her persons.

“Now that’s no way to treat a lady,” Says a third voice from the end of the alley, his tone light with a hint of Irish.

The two men turn to look at the tall lean fellow approaching them in calm and even strides, with the moonlight reflecting off his silver hair.. “Best bugger off, if you know what’s good for yer,” Threatens Alfie pulling his revolver and waving it at man, who looked nonplussed. “You humans and your guns,” Shard sighs disdainfully, never slowing in his stride but raising his hands and showing the men his empty palms as he nears them. “Are you on the piss, bugger off before Alfie here plugs you,” William threatens and as Alfie takes careful aim at Shard’s chest. “Please…help me.” The woman begs, before William silences her with a sharp knee to her stomach, knocking the breath from her and silencing her for the time being. Cocking his head to the side Shard glances at William, “You my friend will pay for that I assure you.” “Plug him Alfie!” William shouts, but as he does, Shard is already moving, drawing a short blade from a thigh harness. “Heh, you gonna stick me?” Alfie asks, and Shard only shrugs as Alfie squeezes the trigger. Deflecting the bullet with the blade was simply enough, for Alfie was a practice shot, but gave Shard more than enough time to calculate the trajectory of the bullet, sending it ricocheting harmlessly off the cold blade, before throwing the blade end over end through the air, where it slammed into Alfie’s chest. William barely had a chance to register happened as his friend and partner staggers backward with a sword buried deep into his sternum, causing him to drop his revolver before crumbling into a heap in the alley.

Shard had charged William as soon as he let loose his sword, and now he was on him, bending his knife hand away from Allison’s throat and in a blur of motion snaps William’s wrist, sending blinding hot pain through the man’s right arm. “I told you I’d make you pay,” Shard whispers forcing the man onto his knees, before delivering a devastating knee to his face, breaking William’s nose and sending him wheeling back onto his ass. Drawing his second blade, the heated blade Draken, Shard walks around the man and leans down taking him by the collar and hauls him up into a sitting position, while positioning the tip of his sword between the man’s neck and shoulder. “Stop! Don’t…don’t kill him!” Cries Allison. “What!?” Shard cries, glancing incredulously up at the woman. “There…there’s been enough of this…enough killing; I want no part in that, let the constable deal with the cretin.” “Are you daft?” Shard asks, “You know what he and him,” He says pointing to William’s now dead partner with the tip of his blade. “Would have done if I hadn’t come along?” Allison nods, “Yes…yes, but we can’t be taken the law in our own hands, it…it makes us savages don’t it?” Shard sighs, “Very well, I won’t kill him, but I’m still gonna hurt him.” Shard arrees, letting go of William’s collar and letting him fall back to the ground, rolling his eyes at the man now praising the woman’s merciful heart, causing Shard to roll his eyes. “Shut it will you?” Shard snaps at the fiend kicking the side of his face with enough force to shatter the man’s jaw. Then, stepping around the man once more, Shard kicks Williams left arm out from his body, where he then swings Draken down at the man’s wrist, severing his hand from his arm, with the heat from the blade cauterizing wound.

Allison shrieks at the sudden brutality, and backs away from Shard as he leans down and snatches up the man’s severed hand, before turning and offering it to the lovely young woman. “Souvenir?” To his surprise the woman blanches and turns, running screaming down the alleyway. “Oh…I’m the bad guy now,” Shard mutters to himself glancing down at William who’s now groaning and crying in pain. “I mean, she dresses like that, walks around at night in heels and I come to her rescue, and do I get so much as a thank you? No I do not.” Shard than proceeds to pat himself on the back with the severed hand and does a poor impression of the man’s voice, “Oh you did good you did, you killed my good buddy and crippled me for life, I will never harm another soul for the rest of me life.”

He then tosses the hand aside, and sheaths his sword and steps over Williams withering body to retrieve frost from his fallen comrade.

Smelling blood, the creature steps carefully into the alley where he watches the strange pale man retrieving a sword reeking of magic from one of the fallen men. For a moment the creature considers attacking while the pale man's back is turn, but notices a chance for an easy meal and remembers the last time it had attacked someone in this city and how they had hurt it. IT's lips curl over his fangs as it slinks back into the shadows watching to see what the man would do next.

Shard sighs as he pulls frost from the corpse, frowning at the blood already frozen on the blade, but a quick flip of the wrist is enough to break the ice from the blade, allowing it to fall in frozen flakes at his feet. Sensing he was being watching, he glances up noticing the figure at the end of the alley.

"Hm, I suppose as long as you keep your distance I see no reasons why we should quarrel." Turning away, but keeping a cautious eye on the spy, Shard kneels down and begins going through the dead man's pockets.

"Let's see what have we hear, money? not much, but I'll have more fun with this then you will." He says, looking to the gun, frowning at the sight. He had briefly considered leaving it, but there was too great of a chance of a child finding it.

Picking up the pistol, he quickly breaks it apart, dropping the pieces at the feet of the corpse, then steps over to William's now unconscious form. He considers the meager findings he found in Williams departed friend, but he shrugs, reasoning there's no telling what he could find.

Giving the figure another courtesy glance, Shard crouches beside William and begins going through the man's pocket. Finding various useless and cheap trinkets, but finding a slightly larger sum of money, along with an opium pouch, which he pockets to destroy later. He never understood human's desire to drug themselves into a stupor.

Standing, he brushes himself off, and continues his way to the inn for his meeting, hoping to find a slightly more grateful damsel in distress, one would at least reward him with a kiss, or perhaps a drink, or a drink, a kiss and a massage. He wasn't overly picky.

Watching the pale man who reeks of magic search the two men before disappearing down the alleyway, the creature decides it didn't like how he had kept looking at it. But it would find him later, now it was hungry and needed to feed. So shaking the illusion of its man form, it lopes down the alley leaping on the first body first. It was freshly dead, still warm, and so it began to feed, tearing he corpse apart as it devoured him clothes and all.

William has a moment where he wakes, and through the pain and shock, he looks down at a slurping sound, seeing his partner all but ingested by a horror he only saw in his nightmares. He tries to scream, but it's a pitiful sound. That only draws he attention of the monster who's lips curl in a wicket smile at the sight of the man trying to crawl away.

The creature then pounces on him, as the man's choked screams go seemingly unoticed as be he eaten alive.